Cam Hooke’s Collingwood Life – Round 22 Review

True Believers, one to go for 2017.

 

Firstly my thanks to John Harms for his invitation to attend the panel discussion about ‘sport and how it has shaped Australian culture’ at the National Museum.  It was a fascinating discourse and will be presented on Radio National tonight at 8.00pm.  More detail of the panellists and the topic are at http://www.footyalmanac.com.au/national-museum-of-australia-event-sporting-moments-panel-discussion-aug-18/ and http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/australian-identity-and-sport/7751616. Worth listening to.  The question I wanted to ask, but we ran out of time was: “In this context, what does our reaction to the Roy & HG interview following Bradbury’s skating Gold Medal say about him but, more importantly, about us?”  And, of course, “doing a Bradbury” is part of our national lexicon, now – “To win as a result of miraculous circumstances, despite being in a losing position“.

 

I always expected the GC to be an easy win (my pick – 47 points).  The ‘Expert tipsters’ picked the Pies 22 to 2, with margins from 2 to 40 points.

 

Match reports at http://www.afl.com.au/match-centre/2016/22/coll-v-gcfc and http://www.theage.com.au/match-centre/afl/match-20160142206.html.

 

Brief comments:

  • A good win set up by a fantastic First Half.  After Half Time the competition was, actually, even (with a very ordinary Last Quarter by both sides, from reports).  Check the Match Centre report – for the game we destroyed them in Hit Outs (48 to 18) but lost the Clearances (31 to 35) – go figure?  Also check the Advanced Statistics at the same site – we had 13 players with Disposal Efficiency over 80%; they had 7 – a pretty clear indication of pressure.  The other ‘killer’ statistic was our Marks inside 50 – 17 to 8.  A fundamental need for the team is to be able to apply pressure and win for the whole game – not to take the foot off the pedal;
  • Crowd – 17,644.  Almost exactly half what I predicted and that was going to be pretty awful; and
  • VFL.  A solid 21 point win against Box Hill (Hawthorn) giving us a 12th win in a row.  Note the contributions by Trav and Witts.  The team are now on top of the Ladder – http://www.foxsportspulse.com/comp_info.cgi?c=1-118-0-392693-0&a=LADDER.  Their final H&A game this season is against Footscray at the Whitten Oval on Saturday, 27 August; bounce – 12.00pm.  Finals detail not yet available.

 

Reports?  Did anyone attend, watch?  Ground Reports please?

 

Next. Round 23 – Hawthorn at the G – Sunday, 28 August; bounce: 3.20pm. More on this later in the week.  Hawthorn have dropped from 1st to 4th on the Ladder last weekend; they could drop a further three places if we win, and other teams below them (GWS, WCE and WB) win.  We should try and win this ‘to make a point’, heading into next season.

 

Ladies & gentlemen, I have been invited (by John Harms, of course) to contribute a ‘Season Assessment’ of the Pies’ performance this year for publication in the Footy Almanac Annual.  It was always my intention to produce a short summary following next week’s game.  I would welcome your comments, views, attitudes, etc, etc? Let’s say to me by cob, 9 September pls? Thanks.

 

Go Pies.
 

Cam

Comments

  1. G’day Cam, Lovely to bump into you and Krista at the National Museum. Looking forward to your assessment of the season. I’ll be in touch. Cheers JTH

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